Scenes from the riots in London (2023)

FAQs

What did people do in the London riots? ›

Cars and buildings were torched and roads barricaded. Missiles were thrown at police and crowds of people stormed their own communities, with looters helping themselves to everything and anything they could get their hands on. The rioters organised themselves via social media and the police struggled to gain control.

Over the next five nights, unrest broke out in towns and cities across the UK, 15,000 people took to the streets, five tragically losing their lives, while hundreds of police officers were injured and £250 million worth of damage was done to shops and businesses in London alone.

The 2011 England riots, more widely known as the London riots, were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011. Thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, which saw looting, arson, as well as mass deployment of police and the deaths of five people.

In total, 2,158 people were convicted and prison sentences totalling more than 1,800 years were handed out. The pressure for "tough justice" meant some first-time offenders were imprisoned for the pettiest of crimes, including stealing bottles of Evian and multipacks of crisps.

Two days after the police shooting of a local black man, Mark Duggan, in north London on 6 August 2011, protestors gathered outside the local police station. Mishandling of this protest led to the outbreak of violence and looting.

1981 England riots, mainly in London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds.

The riots not only caused unhappiness, but people near them also altered their behaviour in reaction. In particular, communication and information seeking increased, with higher levels of TV watching, texting, email and social media use. However, for a few, the riots were positive.

The most common crimes were burglary (1,101), damage to vehicles (399), theft (310) and arson (162). The Met said it had more than 1,100 crime scenes in 22 boroughs, and 20,000 hours of CCTV footage to review. Figures from the force also show that 396 juveniles have been arrested, of which 218 have been charged.

People were forced to flee their burning homes and premises, in London nearly 200 households were left displaced, some families required long term alternative housing. Most tragically of all, five people lost their lives.

This greater police presence on the streets was the major factor in persuading people to stay at home, according to the Reading the Riots study, which interviewed 270 people involved in the events. Other explanations for the riots ending included a lack of excitement and there being nothing left to loot.

How many people died in the 2011 London riots? ›

West Midlands Police said 445 people had been arrested and Nottinghamshire Police said they had arrested 109 people and charged 69. A peaceful night but large numbers of officers still lining the streets. Five people died in total in the riots.

Whoever is guilty of rioting, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black British man, was shot dead by police in Tottenham, North London on 4 August 2011. The Metropolitan Police stated that officers were attempting to arrest Duggan on suspicion of planning an attack and that he was in possession of a handgun. Duggan died from a gunshot wound to the chest.

“At the time of the riots, it was hard not to feel that hysteria was drifting from the streets into the courtroom. "We know people were almost four times more likely to be sent to prison for comparable offences than would normally be the case, and prison sentences were roughly doubled in length.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) puts the cost of the riots at “well over £100m”. But domestic and business insurers won't be forking out for it – because they know victims of riots can claim from local police budgets. This is all down to the rather ancient Riot (Damages) Act of 1886.

1947 – Partition riots, India and modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, the hardest hit region was the densely populated state of Punjab (today divided between India and Pakistan), death toll estimates between 500,000 and 2,000,000, the deadliest riots known to humankind.

The shooting of 29-year-old Duggan on 4 August a decade ago, and the subsequent handling of the incident by police, sparked some of the biggest riots in modern English history, resulting in five deaths and more than 3,000 arrests over the course of five days (6-10 August).

The landowning class in England felt severely threatened by the riots and responded with harsh punitive measures. Nearly 2,000 protesters were brought to trial in 1830–1831; 252 were sentenced to death (though only 19 were actually hanged), 644 were imprisoned and 481 were transported to penal colonies in Australia.

Firstly, two days after Mark Duggan was killed, a protest against the police turned into a riot in Tottenham. Secondly, the riots spread to a small number of areas in London, including Brixton.

Where did the worst riot of the 1960s occur? ›

The most deadly riots were in Detroit (1967), Los Angeles (1965), and Newark (1967). Measuring riot severity by also including arrests, injuries, and arson adds Washington (1968) to that list.

Call 911 and request law enforcement support.

Their primary responsibility is to support the de-escalation of any behaviors that may start a riot and to be on the lookout for any individuals who may have a weapon.

Demographics: Some 90% of those brought before the courts were male and about half were aged under 21. Only 5% were over the age of 40. Of those defendants whose ethnicity is known: 46% were black, 42% were white, 7% were Asian and 5% were classified as "other".

Robert Hubert (c. 1640 – 27 October 1666) was a watchmaker from Rouen, France, who was executed following his false confession of starting the Great Fire of London.

So how did they put out the Great Fire of London? Pepys spoke to the Admiral of the Navy and agreed they should blow up houses in the path of the fire. The hope was that by doing this they would create a space to stop the fire spreading from house to house.

By mid-September 1940 the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, and the invasion was postponed indefinitely. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet Union.

Five people ended up dead and more than £200m of damage was done to businesses and property. And when the police studied the CCTV footage and pieced together the sequence of events, they alleged that it ultimately led all the way back to one man: Marcus Knox-Hooke.

Members of the crowd who do this can be called rioters. The word rioting can be used as both a verb and a noun. Violent protests are sometimes called riots.

What is 147 criminal code? ›

Whoever is guilty of rioting, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

Inciting a riot is a misdemeanor offense that is punishable by extensive fines and up to a year in county jail. If the defendant incited a riot in a jail or prison that resulted in serious bodily injury to another, the offense is then a “wobbler” which can be filed as a felony or a misdemeanor.

Kemani Kane Duggan was born on 9 May 2001, in Tottenham, London, England. He is the son of Mark Duggan, who was shot to death by police in 2011. After his father's death, Duggan was looked after by Marcus Knox-Hooke, one of his father's friends.

The private service will be followed by a burial in Wood Green. A reception will be held at Broadwater Farm.

Duggan was born on 15 September 1981 to a white mother, Pamela Duggan, and a black father, Bruno Hall.

Melbourne man convicted for one count of human trafficking and five counts of child sexual abuse. Apprehended in 2015 and initially given a life sentence in 2018, with 129 years eventually being added in 2022 due to a second conviction.

Another Oklahoma jury sentenced Charles Scott Robinson to 30,000 years behind bars in 1994 for raping a small child. The world's longest non-life sentence, according to the "Guinness Book of Records", was imposed on Thai pyramid scheme fraudster Chamoy Thipyaso, who was jailed for 141,078 years in 1989.

The longest sentence ever received by a criminal in a UK court is the 26 concurrent life sentences imposed on Andrew Aston at Birmingham Crown Court in 2002. During three months in early 2001, the cocaine addict attacked and stole from 26 elderly and disabled people in their own homes.

The riots not only caused unhappiness, but people near them also altered their behaviour in reaction. In particular, communication and information seeking increased, with higher levels of TV watching, texting, email and social media use. However, for a few, the riots were positive.

Riot officers and police on horseback were “deployed to disperse the crowds”, but “came under attack from bottles, fireworks and other missiles”.

How was surveillance used in the London riots? ›

In the aftermath of the London riots in August 2011 police scoured through more than 200,000 hours of CCTV to identify suspects. Around 5,000 offenders were found by trawling through the footage, after a process that took more than five months.

At a re-trial on 31 January 2013 Hutchinson-Foster was convicted of supplying Duggan with the gun and jailed. In August 2013 the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said its investigation had substantially ended and that they had found no evidence of criminality by the police.

The most common crimes were burglary (1,101), damage to vehicles (399), theft (310) and arson (162). The Met said it had more than 1,100 crime scenes in 22 boroughs, and 20,000 hours of CCTV footage to review. Figures from the force also show that 396 juveniles have been arrested, of which 218 have been charged.

London police were issued revolvers in 1884 following the murder of two officers, though it wasn't mandatory: They could choose whether or not to carry them. The weapons were formally retired in 1936. During World War II, police were issued firearms in case of German invasion, but these were never to be used on patrol.

And then: “It's not something I'm proud of.” Mark was Mark Duggan, the 29-year-old who was shot dead by police on 4 August 2011 – the spark that lit the flame of the Tottenham riots, which became the London riots and then the 2011 British riots as the violence spread first around the capital and then to cities across ...

Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old who lived in Tottenham, north London, was shot in Tottenham by a Metropolitan Police officer on 4 August 2011. Police had been trying to arrest Duggan because he had been carrying a handgun and they thought he was planning to shoot someone.

The 2011 riots were the Met's largest investigation using CCTV: “The CCTV has proved invaluable.” Noted at the time of the riots was that many on the streets wore hoods over their heads, or scarves around their mouths, seeking to obscure their features from CCTV; a back-handed compliment to the surveillance.